THE NEW YORKER visions" and General Bliss was bluntly exclaiming, "We have come over here to get ourselves killed. . . what are you waiting for?," by October, Pétain, who held the directive over the American generals, had so cramped the impatient Yanks with what his colleagues called his pet "limited advances and prudent rigidities" that F och, exasperated, "lib- erated Pershing from Pétain's apron strings" and thereafter dealt with the American general directly. I T is ironic that the main authoritative, controversial historical opinions about Pétain, the substance of which was of such painful concern to French and British leaders during the war, were of little interest to the French and British publics by the time they were finally published, in the early thirties, when most of the war memoirs appeared and when war wrangles were considered old, dull stuff. The Pétain question did not create a furor until the nineteen- forties, when it suddenly became argu- mentative pro- and anti-Vichy hot news, not only in France and England but also in New York and Chicago and .It- San Francisco. The only reason there could have been any argument at all as to whether quotations out of his past could prove that P étain was (a) the Hero of Verdun or (b) a defeatist lay in the fact that each side brazenly pre- sented only the selected quotations and even the selected half-sentences which would prove it to be right; that neither side used all the quotations or all of cer- tain sentences; and that nobody, even in the middle ground, bothered to argue that all that complete quotations from either side could ever prove was that Pétain was, at one and the same time, both hero and defeatist mixed. For instance, the Hero of Verdun school usually opened by triumphantly quoting the bitter-tongued Clemen- ceau's mellifluous phrases describing Pétain as "the best of our chiefs," who "unshakably remained a great soldier . . . of tranquil heroism... master of himself." But only the anti-Pétainists went on to cite the old Tiger as stating, with relish, that Pétain's "pessimism is maddening. . . . Should a general talk or even think like that? " 'The P étainists, quoting J offre, seized upon "I thought that General P étain, with his profound knowledge of infantry and his very great sense of realities, would help me greatly, working at my side." But only the anti-Pétainists quoted the next sen- tence, which begins, "However. . ." Lloyd George caustically described Pétain as "a good soldier. . . cautious to "PALE rACE GOT HEAP TROUBLE 41 HIM SPREAD..SHORTS NO SPREAD!" Our Wooden Indian has reached right to the seat of the trouble. For when a man sits, hiS' seat spreads. And most shorts don't. All of which can give a man some gosh-awful moments! · But Harwood Conformer Shorts (and Pajamas)- they're different! They s-p-r-e-a-d when you do! A patented construe. tion allows the seats to spread when you do - across and up-and-down. Or in other words, whenever you need room, Harwood provides it. Result: utter conlfort in all positions! '1%\ "f _ ., -.. ' IJ .y : - !r )'.>..:,\j;1 . : ':::::: ../::: fr :'; : ? 1 ....... .... . . .::: > Ù :"1!t: :::.:.: v ;.,. tii ,t. ' 1 1 :.:.:*1 :...::. .....;.. .-.; Y)1J * >Ær1: jil}/:: :.;,:':-:. .rt<r: I '" :':'::''''' .:':"': ..:-':=: ..;:::.; :"',} ...; ÿ:.:. : " :::':.l)} '. ': ::::" :.". ::::::::: ....:: .;:x.:tf. ;:::: T:':: ;:{f':\......:: IK .'.". .... xtg:'r::,J/>;' *: : I .'. J:" >' '.' / .... , < ':' :> .;;../:.::..:....::. .::., . . .':.,':;:::;. SHORTS from $1 25 : .>. .::. . , ..' . HARWD DD :'". .... ':.: :::.:' ":. -;.:." ..Cn :. " k:"::' .Yo. :"4 f. ./)fi;X) ,.. r >; ;)'; è'>Ùi ...."'.:\%:;;\1 .: . . . ::: . : , : . k . ,. '.:. . ; . . _ . : . .: . ; . : : :::r<; v: ....:j"<l.. ;::. :':" ____ ....,:,:. ;.:.' .: :::. ::::. : 5:: .( Ii '(..':; .., ::::........ \ : .:;:..:.. ,::'., ... :'::{'::: . "': "'./ : .... . #ij,r ^ . :';'*"1 .,. .. :t l lt .mm.. . . -:. ......:-:...-.,.:.<<......;.;......-::-...........,1; .: . ,:. . :. :i. .. < . /. y-, . . .f4" . : PAJAMAS from $3 9S HARWOOD MANUFACTURING CORP., 261 Fifth Avenue, New York